After Asbestos: The History of Mesothelioma Litigation

The aftermath of asbestos usage in the United States has left an often
tragic and even devastating path of destruction for exposure victims.
For close to 100 years, between the late 1800s and mid- to late-1900s,
millions of people were unknowingly exposed to a toxic and potentially
fatal material. Many were exposed at work, while others came into contact
with asbestos in their own homes-either from building components used
during construction or through a process called secondary exposure.

Life after asbestos goes on with no detectable consequences for many people.
But for the small and unfortunate portion that develops an asbestos-linked
illness-such as asbestosis, mesothelioma or other forms of cancer-life
is never the same again. All of these chronic and pervasive conditions
cause significant physical and emotional distress for the victim-and in
the case of mesothelioma cancers, death.

There is much information available about asbestos, its consequences and
options for legal recourses. The objective of this months’ blogs
is to offer victims of asbestos an easy and straightforward guide that
is designed to cover a myriad of topics-from veteran exposure and cutting-edge
treatment options to choosing a legal representative and taking your personal
injury case to court.

PART VIII: THE HISTORY OF MESOTHELIOMA LITIGATION

Mesothelioma litigation is still a fairly young legal specialty field, forming primarily over
the course of the past two decades while also growing at an exponential
rate. Though mesothelioma is the condition most commonly associated with
asbestos liability, the first personal injury cases brought against manufacturers
of asbestos-made products actually came from victims of other non-malignant
conditions.

Early Litigation Involving Asbestos

The earliest legal action related to asbestos exposure in the U.S. occurred
in the 1920s, though few people knew about it until decades later. Those
first few cases involved workers’ compensation claims that were
filed and settled in secrecy. The resulting agreements from those initial
claims included language preventing both the plaintiffs and attorneys
on both sides from filing any future legal action involving asbestos injury
or liability-effectively placing a gag order on all partied involved and
keeping asbestos well out of the public spotlight for nearly 50 years.

It wasn’t until the 1970s, when
government regulation began to finally shed light on the dangers of working and living with
asbestos, that the flood of litigation officially began-slowly at first
but in full swing by the mid-1980s. The initial wave of personal injury
cases brought by victims of asbestos did not cite mesothelioma but instead
claimed other non-malignant conditions, in particular:

Pleural scarring or thickening, which describes the build-up of scar tissue and/or plaques along the
lining of the lungs and chest cavity

Asbestosis, a respiratory condition caused by internal scarring of the lungs

It didn’t take long for once-thriving asbestos manufacturing companies,
like Johns-Manville and Keene, to feel the consequences of litigation
where it hurt them the most-their profit margin. In response, these industrial
giants began filing bankruptcy in rapid succession, which at the time
allowed them to escape most or all obligations tied to liability and legal
actions against them.

Around the same time,
mesothelioma litigation hit its peak with mass settlement groups joining together large numbers
of individual lawsuits in an effort to get around the industry-friendly
bankruptcy laws of the time. (Now, companies filing for bankruptcy are
required to liquidate assets into
asbestos trusts for paying out damages to future claimants-thus reducing the aforementioned
need for group settlements.)

As more and more asbestos victims came forward, the asbestos legal debacle
officially became the largest and longest mass tort in U.S. history. To
date, more than 730,000 plaintiffs and 8,400 defendants have been counted-generating
total costs that are expected to eventually reach $200 billion or more,
according to analyst reports.

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